USA Cycling & UCI Professional Cycling Team

Astellas Professional Cycling Team is a USA Cycling and UCI continental professional cycling team, managed and run by the Cycling Development Foundation, a 501(c)3 nonprofit entity.

Astellas Pharma, has continued their support of the team as the title sponsor for the past five years, the company is based out of Tokyo, Japan, with the funding for the team drawn from the Transplant, Oncology, and Urology arms of Astellas US, based in Northbrook, IL

With humble beginnings in 2011, the team has progressed from a regional team into a national category 1 team in 2012 and now into a professional team . In it’s early days the season was focused on local racing in Illinois and Indiana. Astellas Pharma saw the potential for marketing throughout cycle sport and increased the budget for 2012. That year saw the team race all the NRC and NCC races through America. On top of that Astellas competed in UCI ranked events in Canada and as far afield as Ireland.

2015 was a breakthrough year for the team competing in both the NRC and NCC in the United States as well as UCI races across American and Canada. Ryan Aitcheson finished third on the overall NCC and the team capped off their year racing in the Team Time Trial at the World Championships in Richmond, Virginia.

Cycling Development Foundation and Astellas Pharma are continuing the sport and hard work into 2016, with an exciting roster set to compete across North America in a number of high level events. Astellas Professional Cycling Team has held onto their roots with the return of a number of key riders and will continue to strengthen with the signings of some great young talent as well as a few seasoned professionals – the mix of old and new, mature and neo-pro will provide huge opportunities for the team this season.

In short, Astellas Cycling Team is run by an incredibly forward thinking management and is without doubt the most exciting new professional team to start making a real name for itself in 2015 both inside and outside of cycle sport.